If you use Line, change your password now

Smartphone messenger application Line is urging people to change their passwords as Japanese police investigate the hacking of hundreds of accounts.

At least 303 cases of unauthorised access were confirmed between late May and June 14, including three that involved cash trades resulting in financial loss, a Line spokesman said on Thursday.

“We are cooperating with police in investigating the cases, and we are calling for users to change passwords,” the spokesman said.

The accounts were hacked “presumably after shared passwords with other online services were leaked somewhere else,” he said, adding that to the company’s knowledge, all of the breaches occurred in Japan.

The company stressed that Line’s servers had not come under attack, saying: "Line’s system itself has suffered nothing abnormal. It is not that our system was hacked."

Set up in 2011, Line now has more than 400 million users, mainly in Asia.